Civil and Human Rights Coalition Applauds Senate Hearing on Promoting Housing Opportunities for All

WASHINGTON — Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, issued the following statement after the Senate Banking Committee held a hearing on inequality and opportunity in the housing market:

“Today’s Senate Banking Committee hearing took up a topic that is crucial to our nation’s economic recovery: persistent inequality in the housing and mortgage market.

This hearing highlighted a number of problems that must be addressed, including outdated credit scoring that shuts too many creditworthy people out of the market, rampant neglect of foreclosed properties in communities of color, foreclosure sales policies that favor speculators over families who want to live in and invest in their neighborhoods, and the failure to deal with ‘underwater’ mortgages through principal reduction. Reforms are desperately needed to get the market running again and make homeownership an achievable goal for low- and middle-income families.

Against this backdrop, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac remain critical to expanding homeownership – and with congressional compromise on wholesale reform unlikely – they are here to stay for the foreseeable future. We need to see more discussion about what happens after conservatorship in a way that ensures adequate protections for the communities we serve, taxpayers, and the economy as a whole.”

Wade Henderson is the president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 200 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States. The Leadership Conference works toward an America as good as its ideals. For more information on The Leadership Conference and its 200-plus member organizations, visit www.civilrights.org.

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